Marsha Parkins is a UK-based artist who has designed sketch cards for TOPPS Star Wars collections, as well as many other popular franchises. She has also appeared at many conventions, as part of TOPPS presence at London Film and Comic Con and as an independent artist. Having suggested we document her endeavours at Echo Base Live, we invited her to give her own perspective on events and tell it like only she can.
A yak, an artist and several hundred fans walk into a convention….
It sounds like the start of a bad dad joke, doesn’t it? Luckily it’s not a joke, and it’s not bad at all. In fact, it’s all kinds of good!
This was my weekend of Saturday the 7th of August 2021 at Echo Base LIVE, Europe’s Premier Star Wars Collectors Convention in the Kingfisher Centre, Redditch.
Pandemic aside, my fiancé Sunny and I usually travel the relatively short distance from Malvern twice a year to be among the greatest bunch of Star Wars vintage toy fanatics this side of the Dagobah system, and in our costumes (Darth Sundora and Hannah Solo) for added fun and involvement!
Over the years we have donated many prizes to Echo Base charity raffle held at the end of each event, usually but not limited to my artwork on official Topps sketch cards, which I draw on the day as part of a live art “show”. Recently I have taken to illustrating one or more of the guests invited to attend, and then asked them to autograph the front of the card. For example, this year I put my hand to drawing Yak Face, one of Jabba’s minions in the Palace and onboard Jabba’s Sail Barge the Khetanna, masterfully played on-screen by Sean Crawford. In the world of Star Wars collectors, Yak Face is most notably one of the hardest to find and expensive vintage 1985 Kenner action figures ever made.
Sean and I had never met in person before this event, but you couldn’t tell as we got along like a Sail Barge on fire from the moment we said hello as we set up late on the Friday before the big event. We could have chatted for days, and in fact we almost did over the course of the weekend as Sean is a lovely person to chat with; if you get the chance you really should catch him at an event like say….oh, Echo Base Live in Gothenburg, Sweden in 2022! Sean also has masks, action figures and statuettes of his character Yak Face on show as well as lots of goodies, pins, stickers swag and of course his autographs and his very own art cards at his table, not to mention stories and anecdotes of working on set filming Return of the Jedi. Putting the world to rights and journeying down memory lane was put on hold as we had to focus on Saturday’s main event, and a busy day of meeting fans while I completed artwork made the raffle draw deadline approach faster than a hungry womp rat.
I had decided to draw a card for Sean to sign so that we could donate it to the Echo Base Charity Raffle. Sean was delighted to take part and offer his signature to the front of my art card on the day, which meant many trips between our tables to show him my pencil designs and line work, then inks, outlines and shading before adding colours and highlights and when it was time for him to sign the finished piece I cheekily asked if he would sign another, a personal sketch card I had been working on in tandem to the main piece as a surprise which I then gifted to him. Yes, I made him sign his own gift – my sense of humour is weird, and we laughed a lot. The gesture was well received, and Sean is very proud to be the owner of a Marsha Parkins original sketch card of the elusive Yak Face.
For the two Yak Face unique sketch cards I used Faber Castell vintage mechanical pencil, Faber Castell fine liners and brush pens in black ink, Copic markers, Derwent watercolour pencils and Faber Castell white brush pens.
This year Echo Base LIVE raised £1470 for The Spinal Unit Recreational Fund from the raffle alone. The generosity of Echo Base members is legendary, and I am proud to be one of the instigators in creating the raffle. Sunny sells tickets at every event either by mingling or like this year from the comfort of my art table, and if you can manage the trip across the Galaxy to Redditch – even for just one time – it’s well worth it for the experience. The raffle, the community spirit, the people, the guest signers, meeting charming people like Sean Crawford, Julian Glover and countless others from past Echo Base Live events on these excursions to Redditch is the highlight of my year, every year on the convention circuit. Well, that and getting to see my Fantha Tracks buddies too, of course!
- Hardcover Book
- Candon, Emma Mieko (Author)
- English (Publication Language)
- 352 Pages - 10/12/2021 (Publication Date) - Random House Worlds (Publisher)